


Before I Forget

by Karasuno Volleygays (ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor)



Series: UshiOi Month [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Never thought i'd be saying sorry to oikawa, Non-Linear Narrative, PTSD, but damn dude, i am heckin sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 20:42:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19471819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor/pseuds/Karasuno%20Volleygays
Summary: A mysterious figure follows Tooru for years, but can he deal with finding out who it is who is haunting him and why?





	Before I Forget

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Day 3 of Ushioi Month: Alternative First Meeting

There he is again.

Tooru stops mid-stride and gapes at the strangely familiar silhouette in front of him, making his way through the early morning crush at the bus station with ease considering he’s a head taller than everyone else there. 

It doesn’t make sense, Tooru thinks. He sees the same flocks of strangers every day on his way to work, and they’re all as nondescript as the first time. There is no good reason to know this one in particular; however, every time he sees this almost statuesque mystery man, something in his belly clenches in frustration because he feels like he knows this guy but can’t place who or why.

As usual, though, the unknown figure disappears into the crush and Tooru goes about his day, a knot of nerves as he tries to figure out why he can’t get a perfect stranger out of his head.

* * *

Two small hands find each other in the dark, and Tooru can barely suppress a shiver while ducking away from the blood-drenched clown looming over him. He doesn’t know who the boy whose hand he’s holding is, but the comfort it offers during eight year old Tooru’s first trip through a haunted house is a welcome one.

Next time, when the sign says twelve years minimum age, Tooru thinks he might heed the warning instead of taking advantage of his above average height to get in.

The owner of the hand never leaves his side, and when they finally escape the gloomy clutches of the haunted house, Tooru sees a tall boy with dark brown hair and curious eyes. 

“Thanks,” Tooru says sheepishly, cheeks red as he tries and fails to be nonchalant about the fresh crop of goosebumps hiding under the sleeves of his sweater. 

The boy nods and looks around the carnival with a frown. “There’s not much for me to do here.”

Tooru scoffs. “There are dozen of rides. Just pick one of those.”

“I can’t.” He holds up his right hand, showing a dark purple cast over his wrist. “Besides, I get sick on rides.”

“Oh.” Frowning, Tooru looks around to find something a person can do without both hands and comes up dry. “Yeah, I guess so.” 

They both fall quiet before Tooru straightens with a grin. “Hey, you can hang out with me if you want. I’m the least boring person you’ll ever meet.”

The boy gives him a hint of a smile, but Tooru has a feeling it has the power of a grin behind it. “I’m Tooru.”

“Wakatoshi.” Tooru’s newest friend offers his left hand to shake, and it’s almost dark before they part ways — and not without exchanging phone numbers and emails.

* * *

It’s been over a year since Tooru has seen him, but when he does, there’s no mistaking that old feeling he always gets when he spots this ghost of a man. 

The old urge to run after him flares and dies as soon as its born. Tooru may be twisting on the inside over his burning curiosity, but he isn’t about to let his outsides go along with it.

But one thing is different today — the man stops walking and turns his chin ever so slightly to glance over his shoulder. Tooru catches a hint of a strong jawline that’s gone almost as fast as it appears. He looks around for Mr. Tall Dark and Angular, with no success. 

His trek to work afterward goes by in a blur, with a mishmash of various sort-of encounters playing on loop in his head. It isn’t until he manages to put a staple into his fingernail before Tooru shakes himself out of his contemplative haze. 

Tooru may not know who this guy is, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling like they’ve known each other forever.

* * *

“Hey, no fair!” Tooru whines as Wakatoshi plucks the last bottle of his favorite iced tea from the top shelf in a convenience store, using his superior height to his advantage. “You’re closer than me!”

Wakatoshi raises a brow before handing the bottle to Tooru. “I was just getting it for you.”

“I can get it myself!” Tooru huffs, arms crossed.

“The four broken bottles last time we came here don’t agree.” With that, Wakatoshi carries their ready made bento boxes so they can head to the shore to catch the beach volleyball tournament finals. 

It isn’t easy to find someone else who lives and breathes the same sport as he does, but somehow, Tooru knows two. His best friend from down the street, Hajime, is just as avid as Tooru is, and it had been a pleasant surprise to find that Wakatoshi is too.

But with Hajime out of town on some boring family trip, Tooru doesn’t hesitate to fill his hours with large doses of Wakatoshi. They’ve taken in a bulk of the tournament, and the team they mutually admire the most is on one side of the net, ready to snatch the win.

They watch the match with every scrap of concentration either of them have, transfixed by the speed and dexterity required to execute such thrilling plays. By the time the match finally ends, with their favorite duo victorious, their food is barely touched and neither of them mind their lunch being cold at all.

After they scarf down their food, Tooru babbles on about his favorite plays and how he plans to learn them to use on his own. Wakatoshi hangs on to every word, nodding and replying when Tooru stops for breath. It goes without saying that Tooru isn’t the only one with that goal.

It’s almost sunset, but neither of them have anywhere to be the next day, so they meander down the coast with their toes sinking into the wet sand while chilly Pacific waters lap at their ankles. Tooru’s hand finds Wakatoshi’s, and even if they’re both twelve and grown out of holding hands, Wakatoshi takes it anyway. 

Tooru turns and sees the rising moon shine its silvery light over the softly rippling water, and his breath hitches. “Wow.”

“Hmm?” Wakatoshi stops when Tooru does and follows his line of sight. “Did you see something?”

Shaking his head, Tooru chuckles. “Only you could look at this view and not see it at all.”

Wakatoshi shrugs. “I’d rather pay attention to you.”

The comment is met by a wheezing cough and a wild-eyed, gawking Tooru. “You can just say stuff like that!”

“Why not?” Wakatoshi looks out over the seascape, as well, but even a shell-shocked Tooru can tell that he’s not paying attention to the scenery any more than he had before. “Is it strange that I want to spend my time with you and not an ocean that will be the same in a million years?” 

Tooru inhales sharply, stymied by Wakatoshi’s blunt but stupidly romantic words. Girls their age dream about stuff like this, but he knows for a fact that not a single one of the teenage Don Juans vying for their affections could say what Wakatoshi said with such frankness and conviction. They can dream of a Porsche but settle for a Hyundai.

The thought of Wakatoshi saying any of that to anyone else makes him itch from head to toe. 

Oh.

Wakatoshi takes Tooru’s other hand and tugs him closer. The rest of the world falls away, picturesque horizon and all; the sand beneath them is gone; the sound of the waves is drowned out by Tooru’s heartbeat ringing loudly in his ears. 

If one asks who moved first, Tooru would probably say he did. Wakatoshi would shrug off the question even if he cared about the answer. The truth is, that little bit of space between their friendship and their first kiss was whisked away with everything else by both of them. 

* * *

It’s a long night at the hospital while Tooru and the rest of his family wear out the tile in the waiting room, all in anxious anticipation of his brother’s eldest daughter coming out with the newest member of the Oikawa clan.

Well, his mother isn’t, instead favoring the crossword in some gossip magazine. The most nervous of them all is probably Takeru, who pretends not to shudder every time he hears his sister trying to eject a whole person from her body. 

Tooru lingers with the mildly unnerved crowd, which consists of his father and a few inlaws. He would be angsting with his nephew if this were his first time welcoming a nibling into the world. 

A particularly strong contraction (judging by a guttural yell that could be mistaken for a lioness roaring) chases Tooru toward the lounge down the hall to collect his nerves in peace. Some coffee wouldn’t hurt, either.

Not in a hurry to get back to the tense atmosphere of the waiting room, Tooru lingers over a bad cup of coffee from a vending machine. It tastes like burnt dirt, but the caffeine hits the spot so down the hatch it goes.

The cup nearly slips from his hand when he looks out of the doorless room into the hallway. 

It’s  _ him. _

Clean cut image so very familiar, Tooru spies a well used but neat knee length jacket in a deep shade of purple almost dark enough to be black. Charcoal trousers peek out from underneath. At first glance, this man is of the most boring sort. However, Tooru knows the person underneath suits the colors well.

Yet a decent glimpse of a profile Tooru can catch, even when he sets down the cup and bolts toward the doorway in the blink of an eye. He may be in his forties, but his athleticism hasn’t completely abandoned him. It can’t be said that he is too slow; the mystery fellow is simply gone.

His gaze darts from one end of the hall to another, the distance to any sufficient hiding spot too far for a cheetah, let alone a person, to traverse in that amount of time. Tooru pushes away a stray thought that he might have seen a ghost. He’s far too old for such childish nonsense and makes a mental note to stop watching sci fi movies before bed.

When he returns to the rest of the family, Tooru still can’t drag his mind away from his encounter. He nearly misses the announcement that he has a second grand-niece in his daze.

“Tooru, are you all right?” his mother asks, setting down her magazine. “You seem a little shaken.”

Shaking his head, Tooru snaps to attention to quickly and feels the lurch of gnarly coffee wreaking havoc on his aging digestive system. He pastes on his usual fake grin and waves off her concern. “I’m fine. Just in the mood for real food.”

He isn’t hungry in the slightest, but after a searching look, his mother accepts the answer and clusters around his niece’s hospital bed with everyone else. He lingers toward the back, keeping a respectable distance to allow more immediate family bedside access. She gives him a tight smile and a wave. She always did like him best.

Finally, everyone but the immediate family leaves, and Tooru takes the train home that night. It’s spendier, but some lingering urge to flee overrules his credit card’s objections.

From the moment he crosses the threshold of his apartment, Tooru’s breath abandons him and his heart thrashes in his chest. Every sound is a thunderclap in his ears, even the dull moan of the refrigerator and the usually indiscernible squeak of the floorboards beneath him.

Not this. Not again.

Tooru flops on the couch and fumbles for his phone in his jacket pocket. He hits the first speed dial, and the line springs to life after a few rings. “Hello?”

Lungs burning, Tooru wheezes, “It’s happening again.”

On the other side of the receiver, he can hear Hajime’s grumble of concern. “Be right over.”

True to his word, in under ten minutes, Tooru’s best friend barrels into his apartment and latches onto him. He effortlessly hoists Tooru in his arms and carries him to his bedroom, force-feeding him a seldom-used medication before stripping him down for bed. 

He’s far too tired to argue, so Tooru lies like a rag doll while Hajime carries out a painfully familiar routine. Even though it’s been months since his last bout of it, Tooru remembers each one of them like they happened days ago and not years. 

If it can even be considered sleep, it’s fitful and riddled with a disturbing aura. Needles of dread still dance on his skin when he jerks himself awake, stirring Hajime to attention from his unscheduled nap in the corner chair. “It’s all right. It’s over now.” Hajime strokes Tooru’s back like he’s soothing a distressed child, and it’s absolutely what Tooru needs. 

His shaking limbs slowly calm, and the brief shards of hellish imagery that had followed him back to reality slowly slip away. All that remains are a few scattered fragments of a memory. A scream, a flare of red hot light, and cold metal are all he recalls aside from a lingering haze of deja vu.

Nose buried in the shoulder of Hajime’s hoodie, Tooru moans, “Why is this happening to me?”

He feels Hajime freeze beneath his cheek for a moment before relaxing once again. “Shit happens. If you try to find rhyme or reason in everything, you’ll go nuts.” A familiar chortle eases Tooru’s frayed nerves. “Well, more nuts than you already are.”

It takes a day or so, but Hajime’s presence coaxes him back to his usual self. This time, though, one thing remains certain from this episode:

Now he is certain his dreams aren’t dreams at all, but memories, and he’s going to figure out what it means if it’s the last thing he does.

* * *

Tooru’s breath hitches as he approaches the threshold of their first apartment together. It’s cramped, old, a disgusting color, and  _ theirs. _

Behind him, Wakatoshi wrestles Tooru’s giant suitcase in one hand and the slightly smaller but no less stuffed full bag in the other. “Did you bring your key?” he asks. 

“Of course not.” Tooru grins while he snakes a hand into Wakatoshi’s pocket and plucks out the set of keys he had known would be there. “That’s what I have you for.” He jingles the keys with a grin before opening the door. 

Most of their belongings have already been moved in already, but this is their first night in the place as an item. 

A flash of impulse grabs Tooru, and he draws a surprised grunt from Wakatoshi with as perfect of a princess carry one can possibly carry out while hefting almost ninety kilos of person plus god knows what his suitcases weigh.

“We’re home.” Tooru pecks a kiss on the tip of Wakatoshi’s nose, drawing a rare blush from his partner.

‘Partner’ still has a strange ring to it for Tooru. When they were teenagers, they were boyfriends, but now that they’re grown and out of college and diving headlong into life, it’s different. It isn’t a lingering attraction; they’re a team now. They have a forever that isn’t constructed of grandiose dreams and even bigger promises. 

The suitcases drop right inside the door, and Wakatoshi’s arms wrap around his neck. “You’ll hurt your knee again. You should put me down.”

“Don’t wanna.” Tooru sticks out his tongue and teeters into the single room apartment shoes and all, not stopping until he finds the couch. It doesn’t take long for nature to take its course, and they never do make it to their makeshift futon that night.

This is the stuff that romance novels are made of, and Tooru looks forward to every last page.

* * *

_ It’s so, so hot, and Tooru can feel rivulets of sweat course down his body, only to dry and crust to his skin. He’s wearing clothes, but the heat is so intense it radiates through his clothes like they aren’t even there.  _

_ The air is thick and black, scorching his lungs that suck it all in with a vain hope that there is anymore than a trace amount of oxygen to be had. There isn’t and he knows that, with most of it gobbled by the flames clambering up the walls.  _

_ Peeling off in gray flakes, the ugly paint falling from the walls leaves the paneling stripped bare. A few pictures clatter to the floorboards when their cheap plastic frames surrender to the heat.  _

_ His head spins from the heat and smoke, and his long trek on his hands and knees to the door falls short of its mark.  _

_ But just as Tooru braces himself for the end, strong arms band around his waist and haul him toward the door. _

_ The sound of splintering wood crackles through the room, and Tooru finds himself shoved through the open door just in time to see the floor give out underneath and swallow — _

Tooru thrashes awake, trying to scream away the smoke that isn’t there, to flail away from the fire that isn’t burning. This time, when arms latch around him, the familiar musk of his lifelong friend drags him back into some semblance of reality.

He buries his face in Hajime’s shirt and moans, “Why won’t it leave me alone?”

“I —” Hajime swallows hard and averts his gaze. “It’s complicated.”

If there is anything or anyone Tooru knows better than anyone, it’s Iwaizumi Hajime. There are no expressions of his that Tooru can’t decipher, and this one is full of cagey half-truths. He’s always been a terrible liar. 

“Stop lying to me, Iwa-chan.” Tooru takes a shuddering breath and says, “You don’t have to do that.”

Hajime frames Tooru’s face in a bizarre show of tenderness, his thumb gently stroking Tooru’s cheek. “I know you want to figure everything out and I know that more than anyone, but please believe when I tell you. You don’t want to remember.”

Long dimmed recollections swirl in Tooru’s brain, and he cries, “You don’t know that!”

“Yes, I do!” Hajime grips Tooru’s shoulders and gives him a brisk shake before pulling him into a tight embrace. “If you remember some of it, you’ll remember all of it. It almost killed you once. He wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Tooru’s mouth sags open mid-word, ready to ask who ‘he’ is, but he already knows. The tall man with the dark purple jacket and a dour expression that hides an inner wellspring of peace and contentment. 

_ Wakatoshi. _

“Oh god.” Tooru’s face crumples on Hajime’s shoulder, and he has no idea how long they sit there rocking back and forth until the rush of memories stop branding his mind’s eye. “How could I forget?”

Hajime looks sick, even while shaking his head. “It isn’t your fault. None of it was. You remember last time you had an episode and I came over?” Tooru closes his eyes because Hajime knows full well he never does. “You begged me to never talk about it like you always do, and I don’t because I know what happens when I do.”

Everything in Tooru’s brain screams for details. Never in his entire life has he settled for information on the surface, but Hajime knows that as well and would never say something like that without good reason. 

Against his very nature, Tooru heaves a long sigh and nods. “I trust you, Iwa-chan.” Hajime’s tense shoulders ease almost immediately, and Tooru starts to notice his sleep-mussed hair and drooping eyelids. “You should go home. Kiyoko-chan will wonder where you’ve gone.” With an almost-smile, he adds, “She might think you’re having an affair.”

“Nah, she knows where I am. It’s cool.” He lets out a rattling yawn and drops onto the bed. “Go to sleep. Wake me up if you need to.”

Slowly, the flickering images haunting his memories fades and Tooru finds rest at last. 

* * *

Thick bands dig into his chest, and Tooru struggles against them. His entire body, every scrap of flesh hurts from the effort, but he does it anyway. Tears stream down his cheeks from the pain but he doesn’t stop. He can’t be here. 

He can’t coax any sound out of his raw throat, so he quietly cries out because he knows Wakatoshi will hear him anyway. 

However, nobody comes but people in scrubs who look at him with their sterile form of pity, like they’ve never been around someone who smells like a charred roast before. It’s not until his family and Hajime come to see him with that same look in their eyes that Tooru knows something is wrong.

It’s late in the evening when Hajime steals into the room, despite visiting hours being long over, and Tooru forgoes his usual greeting in lieu of a flat, “Where is he, Iwa-chan?”

Hajime’s entire body tenses like he does every time he is searching for a lie to tell. He’s always been a shit liar, and today it’s especially pathetic. “Tell me where he is!”

“I don’t know!” Hajime cries, roughly grinding his palms against his eyes. “When the fire squad came, they found you but they never found him when he ran in looking for you. They’re still —” Hajime’s voice cracks and he averts his gaze. “They’re still looking in the debris.”

Tooru rasps a scream and thrashes against his restraints. “Why didn’t they find him?” His lungs burn with every word but it doesn’t matter. “You can’t tell me he’s dead when they never found him! There’s no evidence!”

“You’re the evidence, dumbass!” Hajime hisses. “You were barely alive when they found you, and you were the last one they were able to find before the building collapsed. There’s no way in hell anyone could survive that.” 

He swipes at his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie and lets out a wet sniffle. “I’m sorry, I really am. I don’t know what the hell to even say to you. I don’t know what you need. I just —” He sinks into the chair at Tooru’s bedside. “I know how I felt when I almost lost you, so I can’t imagine what it’s like for you. All I know is that you need to accept that it’s  _ possible  _ he’s not coming back. Can you do that?”

“No!” Tooru turns his face away as much as the thick padded straps pinning him down allow. “Get out!”

Hajime swallowed hard, gagging on his breath. “I’ll see you later, okay. Just think about what I said.”

With that, Tooru feels like he’s alone in every way possible. 

* * *

Life crawls by at a glacial pace as it always does after an episode. The difference this time is that the haunting imagery lingers in the back of his mind, waiting for him when he drifts off or even closes his eyes. Silhouettes of flame and nebulous plumes of imaginary smoke haze his vision when he is too weary to fight them off in his quest to avoid the full color vision that sleep brings with it. 

Hajime comes over every day after they both get off of work, to watch tv or cook or play cards — whatever it takes to keep Tooru’s mind busy.

Slowly, his world gets back up to speed. Tooru throws himself into his job, into his volunteer work at the youth volleyball camp his old high school holds every year for prospective recruits. He can’t get too active or his entire body will protest for days, but his sharp eye for play development is always welcome.

Anything is better than being alone. That’s when the visions come, ones he realizes with increasing dread must be memories.

Selective amnesia is the term he finds the most while trawling through every medical journal available in either Japanese or English. When something so terrible happens that a person can’t handle it, the brain blocks out the event to protect itself from reliving the trauma. 

All he knows is whatever it was involved fire and smoke and the man in the purple coat, and that it nearly destroyed Tooru when it happened. He vaguely recalls other brushes with these painful recollections, remembers the relief when his mind built a wall around them and caged them in forever. He’ll never forget the way everyone around him stopped walking on pins and needles once the barriers went back up. 

Finally, Tooru doesn’t think he can ever block out the random bouts of crushing guilt that visit him sometimes when he’s alone and feeling it. This time, though, he doesn’t think he cares to forget.

This person had been so important to him before if his body does all this to keep him hanging on, and that’s someone Tooru thinks he wants to know. Using up every hour of saved up time off he has, Tooru decides to put together the entire puzzle and find those missing pieces.

The name Wakatoshi lingers, and Tooru’s long and fruitless trek through Facebook begins. Without a surname or any details other than a vague impression of what he looked like, it’s almost impossible to find anything.

A stray thought crops up in his head, and Tooru includes volleyball in his search. Finally, he finds part of what he’s looking for in an old news article about a high school volleyball tournament. Once he reads it, Tooru knows that Ushijima Wakatoshi is absolutely the one he’s looking for, which is cemented when a snapshot of him in action surfaces further down the article.

He’s younger than the man Tooru sees sometimes, but it’s definitely him.

Armed with a full name and an age, Tooru’s search begins to turn up more hits than misses. They’re the same age, they’ve played against each other more than once in both middle school and high school volleyball, and Waktoshi has an incredible case of resting bitchface Tooru is sure doesn’t show the man beneath it.

At last, he finds the evidence he knows he’s really searching for. An apartment fire twenty years before, with three residents killed in the blaze. Two names are listed that mean nothing to him, and then the dread in his belly twists uncomfortably when he sees the last one. 

Burying his face in his hands, Tooru closes his eyes and begins to remember. 

* * *

The air stinks of disinfectant, and Tooru wishes he had the strength to take over the wheelchair and steer himself away from this place. But he can’t, because the police need him to provide a positive identity. 

His first thought is that the room is so cold. It’s a fitting environment for a morgue, because the mere idea of seeing Wakatoshi without that amused sparkle in his eye when Tooru does something unnecessarily extra. However, even if he hadn’t been asked to do this for the sake of the investigation, Tooru thinks he might need to do this for himself, as well.

A stark white sheet shrouds a body — a tall one, at that. The white-coated tech doesn’t give him that schooled look of clinical pity. Instead, she doesn’t have much of an expression at all, which Tooru appreciates.

“Are you ready?”

_ No _ , Tooru’s heart screams, but he nods anyway and the sheet draws back.

* * *

It’s a ghastly place, despite the neatly cultivated flower beds surrounding it, but Tooru presses on. 

He only knows one name in the Ushijima family crypt, where dozens of urns filled with ashes dwell. Though he’s not sure why, Tooru finds that familiar name right away, walking right up to his slot in the wall. A pompous looking portrait that Tooru instantly hates populates the back wall of Wakatoshi’s shelf. He is almost certain that it’s Wakatoshi’s mother’s doing, even if he doesn’t know why he knows that.

A pane of glass separates Tooru from the urn, but he reaches out to touch it anyway. Hand splayed on the glass, Tooru rests his head against the cool stone next to it and closes his eyes. 

* * *

The face in front of him is barely a face anymore. Despite efforts to make him appear human rather than a bloody chunk of charcoal, the body is mangled almost beyond all recognition.

Almost.

Tooru ignores the pain and reaches out for the clammy hand on the table, whining when it doesn’t move to meet his grasp. “Please don’t die. I miss you.” The corpse doesn’t answer and Tooru doesn’t expect it to. 

“It’s him,” he chokes. “Can we please leave?”

The orderly guiding his wheelchair does just that, and Tooru barely remembers getting back to his room. His mind’s eye is full of that charred visage long after he returns to his hospital bed. The rest of that night comes back in startling clarity.

He remembers being scooped up and dragged from their apartment, but as they approach the stairwell, a loud crack pierces the air. The floor starts to buckle beneath them, and a wide-eyed Tooru screams as Wakatoshi hurls him onto the stairs just before the floor vanishes under his feet.

His voice is swallowed up by the roar of the building giving out, but Tooru lets his instincts take over and curls into a ball to roll down the steps. Skin red and blistering, bruised by the fall, Tooru can’t move. 

In minutes, several hands latch around him and carry him out. When he wakes up, the restraints are there and he tests their strength with every ounce of will he has left. There isn’t much, since most of it had fried back in that fire.

Wakatoshi is gone, and now Tooru is alone in a room full of people who remind him of it every moment without meaning to.

* * *

Whether he is thinking or praying or mourning, Tooru can’t say, but he stands there with his head bowed until his old knee injury starts to protest. Then he sits on the stone bench in the middle of the mausoleum and stares at Wakatoshi’s ashes instead. 

Hajime had been right; he can see why he had shut down. Who could live with the guilt of knowing that the person you love most in the whole world gave their life to save yours? 

Twenty years removed from the event, however, Tooru grieves not only for Wakatoshi but for all the memories denied him over that time. A vague image of two boys walking hand in hand since they were barely old enough to go to school filters through the old fire-soaked haze. 

It’s nearly dark before Tooru departs, but instead of heading home, he heads for a long-forgotten beach. The taxi driver gives him a strange look for asking to be deposited on a vacant beach in November at nightfall, but he does as he is asked and Tooru heads down for the vast stretch of sand.

Tugging off his shoes, Tooru marvels at the strange squelch of cold sand between his toes as he pads toward the shoreline. A few meters from the water, he finds an old camping chair abandoned by the season and eases into it so he can gaze out over the rather magnificent horizon.

Reds and pinks and oranges and blues lace together in vivid harmony, lighting up the waves into glimmering pearls on the water. A long buried thought crops up about spending time with loved ones and the ocean. Wakatoshi had said that, Tooru is sure of it. 

Midnight approaches before Tooru feels ready to leave. While shaking the sand out of the hem of his trousers, he catches something — some _ one _ — out of the corner of his eye. A profile he will never forget again seems to walk right out of the water, with the same purple coat and smart suit his personal spectre has worn for the past twenty years.

This time, however, Wakatoshi turns to meet his gaze for the first time since the fire. That painfully familiar face is on display, and Tooru’s heart lurches at the sight. “I remember you,” he breathes. “I never wanted to forget you.”

Wakatoshi reaches up to touch Tooru’s cheek, but his hand never quite makes contact. It doesn’t matter, though. He can finally say a proper goodbye.

“I’ll never forget you again.”

Nodding, Wakatoshi’s figure turned and walked into the gently churning water until he disappears into the darkened ocean entirely.

Tooru stands looking out long after he disappears and knows he will never see Wakatoshi again. It’s all right, though; he has memories to keep him afloat, no longer drowned out by his worst nightmare come true.

At peace at last, Tooru treads back toward the road and hits his favorite speed dial once again. Hajime’s sleep-logged voice greets him. “Hey, you okay?”

With a chuckle, Tooru beams at the night sky. “I remember now.”

He hears Hajime suck in a sharp breath. “You need me to come over? If you can’t wait, your pills are in the —”

“Are you my mom, Iwa-chan?” He relishes the reflexive chirp of protest and sighs. “No, I’m going to be all right. Just wanted you to know. I’ll see you at dinner on Sunday.”

“Yeah,” Hajime answers woodenly, and Tooru ends the call.

The ride back to his apartment is quiet, and Tooru looks out the window like he is seeing his usual neighborhood for the first time. Streetlamps cast a warm glow on every house they pass by.

At home, Tooru drops back onto his bed and smiles at the ceiling. An arm reaches over to the nightstand and picks up a small photo — an old picture of  _ Volleyball Monthly _ he had found and printed out earlier. 

Front and center is Wakatoshi, looking cranky and strong as he always has in his Team Japan uniform headlined as the ‘super rookie’. It isn’t a soft look look like the ones he remembers from the figment of his imagination posing as Wakatoshi, but it’s the one concrete thing he has that confirms that Wakatoshi had been a part of his life. 

Pressing a kiss to the photo, Tooru puts it back onto the side table and drifts off to sleep with a contented smile on his face for the first time in years.


End file.
